‘My last husband hated me being a truck driver’ – N.Y. Times talks to women drivers

“My last husband hated me being a truck driver. He used to fight with me on the phone out here on the road. I loved it when I had no signal.”

That’s 60-year-old Patricia Moore, one of several drivers an three women interviewed for an extensive article in a recent issue of The New York Times.

Ayisha Gomez, 39, has been driving for three years to put her daughter through college, and said, “there are so many of us who are single mothers and the work that’s out there, we just can’t support our families.”

In Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like “Throwaway People” the Times’  Trip Gabriel writes about men, women and a couple who drive for a living. From veterans to rookies, they all comment about life on the road.

Gabriel talked to drivers he met at the Petro in Effingham, Illinois where interstates 57 and 70 cross, about halfway between Indianapolis and St. Louis. In the process the conversations cover a lot of ground: driver pay, turnover, autonomous trucks, driver health, and regulations. The article also touches on the personal side of driving: relationships, family commitments, job satisfaction, divorce, loneliness.

Read Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like “Throwaway People” in its entirety.

The Times also wants to hear more from truck drivers. You can share your thoughts with the Times.

Use the comments section below to share your thoughts about the article and about your job.